Avatar made $2.7 billion worldwide back in 2009, so the question of sequels was not if but when. Director James Cameron has certainly been taking his time, working with different sets of writers to hash out three scripts that will shoot back-to-back-to-back. They were supposed to begin filming early this year, but that has been delayed. One of the only things we know about the new movies is that much of the cast, including Sigourney Weaver, will be back. Considering that Weaver’s character, Dr. Grace Augustine, dies near the end of Avatar, we’ve had some questions about how this is going to happen, and she has now come forward and revealed that she is playing a very different part in the new installments.

Weaver is currently stumping for Neill Blomkamp’s robot drama Chappie, as well as fielding questions about his much discussed Alien movie. But that’s not all she has to talk about, and during an appearance in the U.K. on The Jonathan Ross Show, she revealed a small bit of how she fits into Avatar 2.

If you’ve been making plans for December 2016, and they involve going to see the long-in-the-works Avatar 2, James Cameron’s sequel to his 2009, highest-grossing-movie-of-all-time, you might need to find something else to do. The release of the first of three planned films—Avatar 3 and Avatar 4 were slated to follow in consecutive years—has been pushed back a year.

All three films were originally planning to shoot back-to-back-to-back sometime early-ish this year, and be released in 2016, 2017, and 2018. That strategy has been delayed, as the first film now won’t debut until December 2017.

James Cameron is many things, but soft spoken and modest he is not. That’s part of what makes him so damn entertaining. With his Avatar 2, 3, and 4 all shooting back-to-back-to-back next year, you knew that was going to be at the forefront of his mind, and he’s got a lot to say on the matter, covering everything from how great they’re going to be to how they’re going to be “filmed.”

We expect a number of things from the upcoming movies, like a return to the magical alien world of Pandora, appearances from the likes of Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, and Sigourney Weaver, and dazzling special effects. Aside from that, however, we don’t know much about the actual films. Talking to Empire, Cameron didn’t reveal any details, but he did say something very promising. In his words the Avatar sequels are “gonna be bitchin’.”

James Cameron may have created the Terminator back in 1984, and delivered the best two installments (the original, as well as 1991’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day), but he’s not going to have much, if anything to do with the upcoming expansion of the franchise. He’s going to be plenty busy for the next little bit anyway, shooting three Avatar movies back-to-back-to-back starting next year, and he’s not particularly concerned about the path of his robotic creations from the future.

If you’re good at math, you may have noticed that this year marks the 30th anniversary of The Terminator, and to mark this momentous occasion, Cameron appeared at a special screening at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood. Afterwards he took some time out of Avatar prep to talk about what is possibly his most famous, or at most least beloved, cinematic creation with Empire Online.

When James Cameron dropped Avatar back in 2009, it was, as much as anything else, a technological showcase. Regardless of what you think of the rehashed story, we’re talking about a spectacular looking film, one that uses 3D and depth of field like few others before or since. Cameron pushed the boundaries of his cameras and equipment in the first film, and with Avatar 2, 3, and 4 getting closer and closer to becoming a reality, the director could take a similarly trailblazing approach to the sequels.

Cameron took 3D, which has, almost since its inception, been relegated to schlocky horror and gimmick-filled midnight movies, and used it to make something grand and beautiful. He’s also been a big proponent of increased frame rates. As it stands, there’s only been one big time film that’s tried to show in anything but the standard 24-frames-per-second, and that was Peter Jackson’s first Hobbit, which, by all accounts, was a failed experiment (the follow up, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug returned to a more traditional presentation). A report at THR, however, posits that Cameron and Avatar 2 (and Avatar 3 and 4 as they’re all filming together) could use a new technique and technology to leapfrog past that.

We’re about to embark on a massive expansion of the Avatar universe. Early next year James Cameron and 20th Century Fox plan to start filming Avatar 2, Avatar 3, and Avatar 4 back-to-back-to-back. One film will be released each year starting in 2016, and despite being that far away from seeing an actual movie on the screen, Cameron is already pumping up his latest ventures.

Talking to Variety, he doesn’t reveal any specific details about the new Avatar films, but he does disclose some of the things he hopes to accomplish, thematically, and how he wants the upcoming movies to comment on the current world.